June 23, 2016 
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In This Issue

NAVBO members receive discounts on registration to IVBM 2016
Meetings


Vasculata 2016
Uppsala University
and
University of Pennsylvania
August 15-17
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Look inside the IVBM Virtual Conference Bag

Lymphatic Forum
in Chicago, IL
June 8-10, 2017


Vascular Biology 2017
Monterey, CA
October 15-19 
Corporate Partners
Corporate Members
Affiliated Journals
IVBM Supporters
Diamond Level
Welcome Reception Host


Gold Level

Meet the Professor Breakfasts Supported by

Event Partner


Contributors
Silver Level
Academic Supporters

 
Bronze Level
Academic Supporters



 
Deadlines
Vasculata 2016
Uppsala/Philadelphia - August 15-17  

www.navbo.org/events/vasculata-2016

Scholarship Application Deadline - June 27
Abstract Deadline - July 1
Register soon - limited space available at the Uppsala site 

Nominations for the 2017 Meritorious Awards
Earl P. Benditt and Judah Folkman Awards 

19th International Vascular Biology Meeting
Boston - October 30-November 3
 
www.ivbm2016.org
Abstract Deadline - July 26
Early bird registration deadline - August 15
Hotel reservations - October 8
Lessons Learned
Last issue's Lessons Learned, "Identifying the Important Questions," by Sathish Srinivasan, Assistant Member at Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF) is available in its entirety at http://www.navbo.org/resources/lessons-learned.
 
Dr. Srinivasan talks of getting the team together and offers the following advice: be generous, choose your collaborators carefully, focus, be cautious...but don't get cynical and try to relax.
 
The NAVBO Education Committee has asked some junior faculty to share their experiences during the transition from trainee to first independent post.  We hope that their accounts of challenges confronted, dilemmas dissected, and lessons learned will help smooth your career path.  If you would like to share your own experiences, please send us reflections on your transition to Assistant Professor or whatever form of solo flight you undertook.  What helped you, what held you back, what was the "if only I had known" secret you can share.  Send your piece to [email protected].

See "Lessons Learned" pieces on our web site - http://www.navbo.org/resources/lessons-learned 
Lab of the Month
The Lab of Dr. Sathish Srinivasan
This month we are highlighting the lab of Dr. Srinivasan of the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation of the University of Oklahoma. Find out more about Dr. Srinivasan's lab at http://www.navbo.org/membership/members-labs/521-lab062016.
View all featured laboratories at navbo.org/membership/members-labs.
Member News
Meet some of our new members:

Theresa Thanh Din h, Ph.D.
Stanford University
 
Dr. Dinh's research career started with a work-study position in Dr. Neelima Sinha's lab at UC Davis where she studied leaf development and RNA movement. After spending some time in the industry, she joined Dr. Xuemei Chen's lab at UC Riverside for her graduate studies and identified the target binding sequence for a floral homeotic gene as well as solved a long-standing problem in the field of floral development on the molecular mechanism of two antagonistic transcription factors. Further, Dr. Dinh used chemical genomics to identify players involved in DNA methylation and histone modification and how they contribute to plant development. She is presently a post-doc in Dr. Eugene Butcher's lab and is working the transcriptional regulation of MAdCAM1, a gut associated addressin expressed on high endothelial venules (HEVs), which are cells that mediate leukocyte trafficking. Her general interest is to understand the transcriptional and epigenetic machinery conferring HEV identity and how the vasculature contributes to the immune environment. Due to her background and the opportunities that were afforded to her,  Dr. Dinh is a big proponent of outreach and educating the general community on scientific issues as well as engaging the next of scientists.

 
Cristina Sastre, Ph.D.
Massachusetts General Hospital
Dr. Sastre was raised in Majorca (an island in the Mediterranean sea) and majored in Biology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. After finishing her bachelor's degree, she moved to Madrid where she completed her Masters in Molecular Biomedicine and began her Doctorate. During this first period in her scientific career and together with her thesis director, Luis Blanco-Colio, PhD, Dr . Sastre studied the role of a small cytokine called TWEAK in the cellular and molecular mechanisms that drive the inflammation in the atherosclerotic plaque. After six years, she thought that the moment for a postdoc training abroad had arrived and decided to go to Boston where she currently works with William T.  Kimberly MD, PhD, in the Neurology Department of the Massachusetts General Hospital studying the inflammatory pathways in stroke.

Lee Meier
University of Minnesota
Lee is a student in the Medical Scientist Training Program (MD/PhD) at the University of Minnesota and is working toward completion of his PhD in Immunology. His primary interests are rooted in understanding the mechanisms that underlie cardiovascular disease in order to identify novel therapeutic targets for its treatment with the ultimate goal of improving patient outcomes. Prior to joining the MD/PhD program, he conducted research with Professor Bob Tranquillo in the UMN Department of Biomedical Engineering where he focused on developing engineered vascular substitutes for use in coronary artery bypass grafting and hemodialysis access procedures. His current research has taken him on a detour from vascular tissue engineering; he is presently studying the effects of chronic inflammation on the cardiovascular system using a mouse model. His long-term career objective is to be a cardiology physician-scientist at an academic health center where he will be able to balance leading an active translational research laboratory and providing patient care.
Jennifer Susanne Esser
University of Freiburg
After finishing her diploma thesis in biology in the Department of Molecular Biotechnology and Stem Cell Research (Prof. Dr. Ulrich Martin), LEBAO, Hannover Medical School and the Leibniz University of Hannover, Germany, she moved to the laboratory of Martin Moser, Department of Internal Medicine, Medical Center Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg for her PhD thesis. She started to investigate the effect of BMPER and the BMP signaling pathway on endothelial cell function during her PhD thesis and, subsequently, developed new projects for her postdoctoral studies including the investigation of how BMPER's pro-angiogenic effect is mediated by key angiogenesis-related genes such as bFGF and thrombospondin-1, the analysis of further BMP modulators such as twisted gastrulation in angiogenesis, or BMPER's expression in lung adenocarcinomas and its promoting role in tumor development. Since 2013, she is deputy research group leader of the cardiovascular biology group in the Department of Cardiology and Angiology I, University Heart Center Freiburg - Bad Krozingen, University of Freiburg, Germany. Recently, she broadened her research interests from endothelial cells to vascular smooth muscle cells to explore BMPER's function in arterial vascular diseases.


If you have news to share with your colleagues, send it to [email protected].
Spotlight on Trainees
Joy Cappel Young Investigator Award
The Joy Cappel Young Investigator's Award recognizes individuals who are performing research in the area of oncology, nuclear signaling, developmental biology, epigenetics, immunology, microbiology, neuroscience, signal transduction or stem cell technology. The awards will be presented to post-doctoral fellows, graduate students or young investigators who are within five years of their first independent investigator position. The award is in the form of a $4,000 credit for polyclonal antibody development provided by Rockland. Further details are available on the Rockland web site - http://www.rockland-inc.com/young-investigators/
 Recent Publications by NAVBO Members

Aging impairs ischemia-induced neovascularization by attenuating the mobilization of bone marrow-derived angiogenic cells
IJC Metabolic & Endocrine
Aging is associated with impaired ischemia-induced neovascularization. However, the effects of aging on bone marrow-derived angiogenic cell (BMDAC)-mediated vasculogenesis and on angiogenesis at the ischemic sites remain incompletely understood.  Read more

LpMab-12 Established by CasMab Technology Specifically Detects Sialylated O-Glycan on Thr52 of Platelet Aggregation-Stimulating Domain of Human Podoplanin
PLoS One
Podoplanin (PDPN), also known as Aggrus, possesses three tandem repeat of platelet aggregation-stimulating (PLAG) domains in its N-terminus. Among the PLAG domains, sialylated O-glycan on Thr52 of PLAG3 is essential for the binding to C-type lectin-like receptor-2 (CLEC-2) and the platelet-aggregating activity of human PDPN (hPDPN).  Read more

Current Understanding of the Pathways Involved in Adult Stem and Progenitor Cell Migration for Tissue Homeostasis and Repair
Stem Cell Reviews
With the advancements in the field of adult stem and progenitor cells grows the recognition that the motility of primitive cells is a pivotal aspect of their functionality. There is accumulating evidence that the recruitment of tissue-resident and circulating cells is critical for organ homeostasis and effective injury responses, whereas the pathobiology of degenerative diseases, neoplasm and aging, might be rooted in the altered ability of immature cells to migrate.  Read more

Prolyl-4 Hydroxylase 2 (PHD2) Deficiency in Endothelial Cells and Hematopoietic Cells Induces Obliterative Vascular Remodeling and Severe Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension in Mice and Humans Through Hypoxia-Inducible Factor-2α
Circulation
BACKGROUND: Vascular occlusion and complex plexiform lesions are hallmarks of the pathology of severe pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) in patients. However, the mechanisms of obliterative vascular remodeling remain elusive; hence, current therapies have not targeted the fundamental disease-modifying mechanisms and result in only modest improvement in morbidity and mortality.  Read more

MicroRNA-155 contributes to shear-resistant leukocyte adhesion to human brain endothelium in vitro
Fluids Barriers CNS
BACKGROUND: Increased leukocyte adhesion to brain endothelial cells forming the blood-brain barrier (BBB) precedes extravasation into the central nervous system (CNS) in neuroinflammatory diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS). Previously, we reported that microRNA-155 (miR-155) is up-regulated in MS and by inflammatory cytokines in human brain endothelium, with consequent modulation of endothelial paracellular permeability.  Read more

Regulation of brain endothelial barrier function by microRNAs in health and neuroinflammation
FASEB Journal
Brain endothelial cells constitute the major cellular element of the highly specialized blood-brain barrier (BBB) and thereby contribute to CNS homeostasis by restricting entry of circulating leukocytes and blood-borne molecules into the CNS.  Read more

Patterns of expression of factor VIII and von Willebrand factor by endothelial cell subsets in vivo
Blood
Circulating factor VIII (FVIII) is derived from liver and from extra-hepatic sources probably of endothelial origin, but the vascular sites of FVIII production remain unclear. Among organs profiled, only liver and lymph nodes (LNs) show abundant expression of F8 mRNA.  Read more

Numerical Modeling of Experimental Human Fibrous Cap Delamination
Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials
Fibrous cap delamination is a critical process during the rupture of atherosclerotic plaque, which often leads to severe life-threatening clinical consequences such as myocardial infarction or stroke. In this study a finite element modeling and simulation approach is presented that enables the study of fibrous cap delamination experiments for the purpose of understanding the fibrous cap delamination process.  Read more

Comprehensive analysis of promoter-proximal RNA polymerase II pausing across mammalian cell types
Genome Biology
For many genes, RNA polymerase II stably pauses before transitioning to productive elongation. Although polymerase II pausing has been shown to be a mechanism for regulating transcriptional activation, the extent to which it is involved in control of mammalian gene expression and its relationship to chromatin structure remain poorly understood.  Read more

Job Postings
Job Title
Company
Location
Yale University School of Medicine
New Haven, CT
Postdoctoral Positions
University of Massachusetts Medical School
Worcester, MA
University of Illinois at Chicago
Chicago, IL
Postdoctoral fellowship in vascular biology
Brigham and Women's Hospital
Boston, MA
LSU Health Sciences Center
Shreveport, LA
Calendar of Events
July 17-22 Endothelial Cell Phenotypes in Health and Disease
Aug. 15-18 Vasculata 2016
Sept. 7-10 ISACB - 15th Biennial Meeting
Sept. 26-28 Perspectives in Vascular Biology
Oct. 30 - Nov. 3 19th International Vascular Biology Meeting
Nov. 13-16 American Society for Matrix Biology Biennial Meeting
Industry News (originally featured in the June 9 issue)
Links between heart disease and intestinal microbiota
Current Heart Failure Reports
From the abstract: Changes in gut microbiota can initiate systemic inflammation, recognized as a contributor to the pathophysiology of heart failure. Investigators at the Cleveland Clinic report that the metabolite trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO), derived by gut microbiota from dietary nutrients, is a significant promoter of diseases of the heart and kidney. Much remains to be learned regarding mechanisms by which gut microbiota may influence the development of heart failure.

MicroRNA-93 in control of peripheral blood mononuclear cell VEGF-A expression in Kawasaki disease
Pediatrics Research
From the abstract: Kawasaki Disease, a systemic vasculitis syndrome, primarily affects medium-sized arteries, including the coronaries. Investigators at Toyama, Japan and University of Utah report, in a study of 23 KD patients and 12 controls, strikingly high levels of miR-182 and miR-296-5p during the acute febrile phase, and of miR-93, miR-145-5p, miR-145-3p, and miR-150-3p in the defervescence stage. The expression of VEGF-A mRNA by circulating mononuclear cells, previously reported to be controlled by miR-93, was negatively correlated with the expression of this microRNA. miR-93 may thus contribute to the pathogenesis of arteritis in acute KD.

Migraine and cardiovascular disease risk in women
British Medical Journal

From the abstract: An international team of investigators has examined the long-term association between migraine headaches and cardiovascular disease in a subset of female participants in the Nurses' Health Study II. Migraine occurrence was associated, after adjustment for potential confounding factors, with an increased risk for major cardiovascular disease, myocardial infarction, angina/coronary revascularization procedures, and cardiovascular disease mortality. Results of this large, prospective cohort study in women with more than 20 years of follow-up indicate a consistent link between migraine and cardiovascular disease events.
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Please note - more sessions and more information will continue to be added.
Eye Opener Sessions have now been added.

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